My future self.

So this post is late. Honestly, the reason is that your wedding is in 5 days and I really needed to work on my speech. And I kept trying to make myself do that, but then I would get distracted or spend all my time writing emails to the union instead. I think the speech is finally done. Or at least pretty close to done? I don’t know. But this will be a shorter and less thought out post than some of the others. But it is a great opportunity to tell you a story I have been holding on to for the last month.

I have been holding on to this story for a while cause I thought it might make a good blog post. I think I purposefully did not tell you it when it happened so I could blog about it later.

So, on Canada Day I shot a wedding with Sally-Ann. I was staying with Ginny and there was a family camp going on at Island Lake. Ginny texted me and invited me to go to the Canada Day fireworks with her and the people from family camp. I told her I’d see how I felt when the wedding was over. We were done at about 10pm and I was exhausted. I told her I was not going to come and started the drive back to her house from Hillcrest. Part way there I decided that it would be almost no effort for me to stop. It was sort of a “well, why not I guess” kind of decision and at the last minute I pulled off to go and meet them. This is important because if I had not decided to stop I never would have met Marci.

So I met Ginny and we stood outside in the dark waiting for the fireworks to start. The mosquitos were pretty bad so she suggested we jump in the back of the car she came in. There were two ladies sitting in the front seats. Ginny knew them and had driven out with them. I had never met them before; I couldn’t really even see them in the dark. I was sitting behind the passenger seat. We sort of just jumped into the conversation. I don’t really remember all the details, but somehow the lady sitting in front of me began talking about her friendship with the lady sitting in the drivers seat. She was telling a story of the night before when she had wanted to talk but her friend had gone to sleep early. She then launched into an explanation of how she is an ‘external processor’ and needs to say things out loud to work through them. She said something very close to “yeah, I don’t really need them to say anything to me, I just need them to sit there and listen to me and then I work it all out for myself.”

I don’t know if you have ever heard me talk about how I am an external processor, I think I tend to talk about it more around Ginny because for two years she was the person that I consistently externally processed to, but that is almost word for word how I describe myself. I honestly don’t even think I have ever heard anyone, except myself, use the term ‘external processor’ in conversation before. Like I was sitting behind her with my mouth open, absolutely shocked that she was using my almost exact words. I just stared wide-eyed at Ginny while she laughed. At this point Ginny told me that earlier that day this lady had been telling a story and Ginny thought to herself, “hmm, the way that she is telling this reminds me of Raiah.”

So we laughed about that a little bit. Then the conversation moved on and about two minutes later this lady rubbed her elbow and said, “my epicondylitis has been acting up lately.” Anatomy talk. ANATOMY TALK! (Fun fact: my case study in my athletic injuries course in University was epicondylitis. No jokes.) Anyways, we talked about epicondylitis a bit and I said, “I use words like that all the time, I’m all about anatomy, I have a kinesiology degree.” And she said, “awesome, what are you thinking of doing with that.” And I said, “I’m thinking I’ll get my Masters in Occupational Therapy.” And, I shit you not, she turned around and said “I’m an Occupational Therapist! Usually everyone wants to be a Physio and I have to try to talk them into OT.”

She told me about her job in Vancouver and her epicondylitis. I told her about my plans to go back to school and about when I exploded the bursa in my elbow in high school. Before long we were outside and I had taken my jacket off so that she could feel where the bursa was missing in my elbow. It was crazy. Everything about us was the same. Literally the only difference is that she is a bit more of an extroverted person than I am. But everything else. EVERYTHING ELSE. I just remember being continually shocked and Ginny just sitting there watching and laughing at me while I lost my mind.

Eventually the fireworks started and then Ginny and I left to go home to sleep. But this felt like one of those chance encounters that means something. Like I literally felt like I was meeting a future version of myself. I have never met anyone so like me before, it actually completely blew my mind. And the best part was that I thought she was SO COOL! Like if people see to be me even a little bit like what I saw her to be, I would be so happy. She was SO AWESOME! On the way home Ginny told me that her name was Marci and that she almost always comes to family camp.

I told Ginny to tell her that I was so happy to meet her and that she was so cool. The next day Ginny texted me to tell me that before she could deliver my message to her, Marci came up to tell her that she said that she loved meeting me and asked if I would be around more. She also told Ginny to tell me that if for some reason I end up doing my OT in Vancouver, I can live with her! We met and talked for less than an hour and she has invited me to live with her. She is literally the coolest person I have ever met.

So that is the story. I have met my future self and she is the coolest person in the entire world.